TLDR: They were frustrating to get in contact with and the one thing I really wanted in my bouquet that was listed as the first flower in our contract, was not present anywhere.
W...e went with Abby's because it was the preferred florist with Payne Corley. There were great incentives to go with them, but in the end it didn't matter much because it seemed like there was no communication with the two of them. We were told that we would be contacted by the florist 4-6 months out from our wedding. We tried reaching out 6 months and again at 5 months and did not hear back until 4 months. When we finally made contact, we had some back and forth with Erin (all online via email and 1 zoom call) and she did the best she could to go over the initial contract. Part of the late responses were on our part, but the not responding to certain questions were irritating and frustrating like she was avoiding some things. There were concerns about pricing and we proposed some things, but she pretty much ignored them.
From there, we were told to just go ahead sign the contract and schedule an appointment with Krista. We were not about to do that, but luckily, Krista liked meeting in person. We were happy about this because we could finally sit down and get some finer details ironed out. We went line by line and talked about pricing, each and every flower selection, placements, etc. At the end of the meeting, we let her know about the incentives laid out in Hope's proposal and she let us know that they did not communicate this with her so she got it fixed. We felt great after this meeting, asked and answered all the questions and concerns that we had. That was until a couple days later when we could not get ahold of anyone from Abby's. The only thing we wanted to know was when we could drop off items for them to work on our centerpieces. We called, left messages, emailed, everything from both my husband and I. Nothing, no call backs, no responses, they practically disappeared until finally, my husband just goes over there and were finally able to just hand it to them.
We were scared the florist would drop the ball, but the day of everything seemed to have gone well enough, that was until I kept getting so many questions while getting ready for the ceremony, all related to the flora. This ribbon, that ribbon? this flower, that flower? where? It was stressful enough without the floral concerns, but at that point I had just about given up on stressing on anything wedding related, because if it was meant to be, then it would have happened.
That was until I was given my bouquet. It was big, it was pretty...it mostly matched what I had asked for. The concept was light pink to red and things in between with touches of gold. What I got was this plus this purple flowered rosemary thing that ended up wilting all over my counters afterwards.
In addition, I had asked very specifically for Anemones which I knew were in season and it was the one thing that absolutely did not make it into my bouquet anywhere!! It is still the only flower that I wanted and when I see residual wedding inspirations on social media with them, I want to cry because I did not get them. Actually looking back at the contract right now, they did not include 4 of the flowers and then put in a flower that fell apart like tissue paper. Everything went right with my wedding except for the floral and forgetting white pens and these are the two things that haunt me still.